Leviticus 26:5

And your threshing shall reach unto the vintage, and the vintage shall reach unto the sowing time: and ye shall eat your bread to the full, and dwell in your land safely.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(5) And your threshing shall reach unto the vintage.—That is, the corn crop shall be so plentiful that those who shall be employed in threshing about the month of March will not complete it before the vintage, which was about the month of July.

The vintage shall reach unto the sowing time.—The wine, again, is to be so abundant that those who shall be engaged in gathering and pressing the grapes will not be able to finish before the sowing time again arrives, which is about the month of October. A similar promise is made by Amos: “the plowman shall overtake the reaper, and the treader of grapes him who sowed seed” (Amos 9:13).

Benson Commentary

Leviticus 26:5. Threshing shall reach unto the vintage, &c. — That is, you shall have such plenty of corn, that before you shall have reaped and threshed it out, the vintage will be ready; and before you shall have pressed out your wine it will be time to sow again. Thus they should scarcely have time enough to receive one blessing before another came upon them. A similar promise is made Amos 9:13; The ploughman shall overtake the reaper, and the treader of grapes him that soweth seed.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

26:1-13 This chapter contains a general enforcement of all the laws given by Moses; by promises of reward in case of obedience, on the one hand; and threatenings of punishment for disobedience, on the other. While Israel maintained a national regard to God's worship, sabbaths, and sanctuary, and did not turn aside to idolatry, the Lord engaged to continue to them temporal mercies and religious advantages. These great and precious promises, though they relate chiefly to the life which now is, were typical of the spiritual blessings made sure by the covenant of grace to all believers, through Christ. 1. Plenty and abundance of the fruits of the earth. Every good and perfect gift must be expected from above, from the Father of lights. 2. Peace under the Divine protection. Those dwell in safety, that dwell in God. 3. Victory and success in their wars. It is all one with the Lord to save by many or by few. 4. The increase of their people. The gospel church shall be fruitful. 5. The favour of God, which is the fountain of all Good. 6. Tokens of his presence in and by his ordinances. The way to have God's ordinances fixed among us, is to cleave closely to them. 7. The grace of the covenant. All covenant blessings are summed up in the covenant relation, I will be your God, and ye shall be my people; and they are all grounded upon their redemption. Having purchased them, God would own them, and never cast them off till they cast him off.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Compare the margin reference; Joel 2:19; Job 11:18.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

5. your threshing shall reach unto the vintage, and the vintage shall reach unto the sowing time, &c.—The barley harvest in Judea was about the middle of April; the wheat harvest about six weeks after, or in the beginning of June. After the harvest came the vintage, and fruit gathering towards the latter end of July. Moses led the Hebrews to believe that, provided they were faithful to God, there would be no idle time between the harvest and vintage, so great would be the increase. (See Am 9:13). This promise would be very animating to a people who had come from a country where, for three months, they were pent up without being able to walk abroad because the fields were under water.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Your threshing shall reach unto the vintage, i.e. you shall have so plentiful a harvest, that you shall not be able to thresh out your corn in a little time, but that work will last till the vintage.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

And your threshing shall reach unto the vintage, and the vintage shall reach unto the sowing time,.... Signifying that there should be such plentiful harvests of barley and wheat, the first of which began in March, as would employ them in threshing them out unto the time of vintage, which may be supposed to, be in the month of July; for on the twenty ninth of Sivan, which was about the middle of June, was the time of the first ripe grapes, as appears; see Gill on Numbers 13:20; and that they should have such quantities of grapes on their vines, as would employ them in gathering and pressing them until seedtime, which was usually in October, see Amos 9:13,

and ye shall eat your bread to the full; which is put for all provisions; and the meaning is, they should have plenty of food, eat full meals, or however, what they ate, whether little or much, should be satisfying and refreshing to them, having it with a divine blessing:

and dwell in your land safely; would have no need to go out of it into other lands for the sake of food, and would be in no danger from enemies invading them and carrying off their substance; plenty without safety would not be so great a blessing as with it, since, though they had it, they might be deprived of it, wherefore security from enemies is promised.

Geneva Study Bible

And your threshing shall reach unto the vintage, and the vintage shall reach unto the sowing time: and ye shall eat your bread to the full, and dwell in your land safely.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

5. Such shall be the abundant yield of cereals and wine that the ingathering will be continuous from the commencement of harvest till the time arrives for sowing the next crop. Cp. Amos 9:13.

Leviticus 26:5

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

The Blessing of Fidelity to the Law. - Leviticus 26:3-5. If the Israelites walked in the commandments of the Lord (for the expression see Leviticus 18:3.), the Lord would give fruitfulness to their land, that they should have bread to the full. "I will give you rain-showers in season." The allusion here is to the showers which fall at the two rainy seasons, and upon which the fruitfulness of Palestine depends, viz., the early and latter rain (Deuteronomy 11:14). The former of these occurs after the autumnal equinox, at the time of the winter-sowing of wheat and barley, in the latter half of October or beginning of November. It generally falls in heavy showers in November and December, and then after that only at long intervals, and not so heavily. The latter, or so-called latter rain, fall sin March before the beginning of the harvest of the winter crops, at the time of sowing the summer seed, and lasts only a few days, in some years only a few hours (see Robinson, Pal. ii. pp. 97ff.). - On Leviticus 26:5, Leviticus 26:6, see Leviticus 25:18-19.